Pataki Takes on Trump: What Do You Think?

Call it the battle of the Empire State titans as former Gov. George Pataki, R-NY, has issued a challenge to 15 Republican candidates for president to denounce what he calls “unacceptable” remarks by Donald Trump, another Republican from New York attempting to win the 2016 presidential nomination.

The brouhaha started after Trump made his announcement speech last month and then, after veering off from his prepared remarks, suggested that many illegal aliens from Mexico were bringing problems into the United States.

“The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems,” he said. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you ... They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting.”

Not long after announcing – and in many polls since – Trump’s poll numbers surged and is placing in the top tier of candidates in polls out of Iowa, the first Caucus of the cycle, and New Hampshire, that holds the first-in-the-nation primary.

Today, Pataki took Trump’s remarks head-on in a letter to all of the Republican presidential candidates called for them to denounce the comments noting that his own experience showed that Trump’s remarks were off the mark.

“One hundred years ago, when Irish immigrants were coming to America, my grandmother among them, they were too often characterized as ‘drunks,’” Pataki wrote. “A few years later it was the Italian immigrants, my grandfather among them, who were called ‘mobsters’ or worse, ‘dagos.’ This type of divisive rhetoric is just wrong. It was wrong 100 years ago and it’s wrong today.”

Pataki said it was unacceptable that “a leading candidate for the GOP nomination for president is calling Mexicans criminals, rapists and drug dealers. This is unacceptable.”

Pataki went on to say that while he agreed that the county must secure the border and stop illegal immigration, the vast majority of Mexicans, were good people and came to the United States to work, succeed, and live the American Dream.

While Pataki is slightly off in his remarks – Trump was talking about illegal aliens crossing over the border ahead of legal immigrants waiting in line, not all Mexicans – the remarks have caused a firestorm led to corporate actions against the billionaire including Macy’s dropping his clothing line, NBCUniversal breaking ties with the company, and Univision dropping pageant programming.

What do you think? Was Trump correct in his assertion about illegal aliens from Mexico? Or is Pataki right in saying that Trump’s comments were not unlike horrible comments made about immigrants in the past? Leave a note in the comment section and let us know what you think.